The present invention relates generally to electronic mail communications and, more specifically, to a system for displaying differences in content between email messages in an email thread.
Electronic mail, most commonly referred to as e-mail or email, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Email operates across computer networks ranging from local area networks (LAN) to broad-ranging networks, such as the Internet. Email provides a quick and efficient means for people to electronically communicate, whether they are located in the same building or thousands of miles apart.
Early email systems typically required the author and recipient to be online simultaneously, similar to today's instant messaging. Current email systems are based on a “store-and-forward” model, where a message is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time, typically only milliseconds, to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The intermediate station is typically a node that verifies the integrity of the message before forwarding it. Thus, in “store-and-forward” communications, an email server accepts, forwards, delivers and may store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online, i.e. connected to a network, simultaneously. The users only need to briefly connect to the network, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.
Email messages typically consists of three components: a message envelope, message header, and message body. The message envelope is where a message or data is encrypted into a data packet. Thus, encrypting data and/or the body of the message provides an “electronic” envelope for the data and/or the body of the message. The message envelope is a portion of the internal process by which email is routed.
The message header contains control information, and often descriptive information as well. Control information in a message header frequently includes: “FROM”, which is an originator's email address; “TO”, which is one or more recipient email addresses to which the message is intended; and “DATE” where the message is date and time stamped by a mail transfer agent that facilitates the transfer of the email message from one computer to another. Optional header information includes: “SUBJECT”, which indicates an intended subject of the email and “CC”, where recipients other than a main recipient of the email message, receive an electronic “Carbon Copy” of the message, though the content of the message may not be directed toward them.
The message body of an email message is the actual content of the message contained in the email. The body of the email message contains actual and arbitrary data such as text or images created by the user. The message body may be created using plain text or HTML (HyperText Markup Language).
Conversation threading is a feature used by many email clients, bulletin boards, newsgroups, and Internet forums. An “email thread” is an email message and a running list of all subsequent reply messages pertaining to the original email message. The original email message and subsequent reply messages are most commonly organized in chronological order, and recipients and/or other participants in the email thread may refer to or re-post snippets from earlier parts of the commentary for clarification. Email software is used to group email messages into threaded views to aid users by visually grouping messages. Email messages may be grouped in a hierarchy by subject and time sent or received, with replies to a message arranged visually near to the original message.
However, it is a common occurrence that email threads contain long-running discussions pertaining to a common subject. A sender sends a particular query, statement, or other data in an email message and replies by multiple recipient's continue the email thread. Many of the replies by the recipients to the original email message may be very brief, and they require the sender and other recipients to open the actual email to view the brief response. This can be time consuming and unproductive for users, particularly when there are substantial number of recipients or responses.
A known effort to identify unique content in interrelated email messages includes comparing follow-on email messages, such as replies or forwards, to the original email message. Which part of a follow-on message is not present in the original message and is a unique part of the follow-on message is determined. The comparison includes parsing of the messages to extract user viewable parts for determination of which extracted part is the last message part containing unique information. Once the unique message part is determined, the message body that excludes everything after the unique part, including the headers, may be displayed. A disadvantage of this method is that the email messages must be opened, to determine the unique part of subsequent messages, and thus is still time consuming.